Online writing and movement courses to improve your health and wellbeing

‘Creatively rewarding and hugely beneficial for my own stress management. There is huge healing potential in writing.’

Dr Ruw Abeyratne, Director of Health Equality and Inclusion, University Hospitals of Leicester

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‘Sally-Anne is a fantastic teacher, really energetic and engaging.’

Workshop Participant

New courses will be announced soon.

For more information or to discuss requirements, please email hello@storymachines.co.uk

What is Writing Well?

Led by Sally-Anne Lomas, this is your chance to use writing and movement to support your wellbeing. It is fun, communal, and liberating.

Writing and movement can seem like polar opposites: one begins with language and the head, the other direct from the body. In this online workshop Sally-Anne Lomas will help you bring mind and body together. Through activities you will explore how breath, posture, and a wide range of movement, from gesture to dance, can stimulate your writing. Simple physical exercises accessible to all will help you access the subconscious, explore new pathways to use writing therapeutically. You will discover how to use your body to unlock your creativity.

So go on, turn off your webcam and see how liberating embodied writing can be.

Who is Writing Well For?

This course is for humans who want to be creative and feel well.

It is for experienced writers and newcomers.

It is for those who are comfortable using their body, and those who are less so. It takes place online through Zoom, so that you can turn off your webcam and participate in the privacy of your own space.

Accessibility

• This course is open to anyone who can move any part of their body. You do not need to be physically fit or able-bodied to participate. All exercises will be possible to do while sitting down.
• You do not need significant space in which to do this course. The space to turn around (in chair or standing up) is useful but not imperative.
• You do not need previous experience of movement, dance, or writing, in order to participate in this course.

‘I am passionate about writing for wellbeing. I have found this process very helpful in working through my own grief, and I’ve been delighted with the writing I’ve produced. Having a safe, fun, creative space to write and move in has been both healing and inspiring.’

Sally-Anne Lomas

What are the Wellbeing Benefits?

James Pennebaker is an American social psychologist who has pioneered expressive writing as a means to better health and wellbeing. His work has shown to writing to be particularly effective when people have lots on their mind, and has also shown positive impacts including:

• Improved sleep and immune system
• Easing of physical ailments like asthma (use less medication) and arthritis (have less pain)
• Raising the wellbeing of breast cancer patients who reported fewer coughs, headaches, chest pain and stomach upset, and attended fewer medical appointments
• Social benefits – Talking more with others, connecting and socialising more

You can hear more about James Pannebaker’s work, and the positive impacts of expressive writing on wellbeing on Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing episode on Radio 4 here.

Sally-Anne Lomas

Sally-Anne Lomas lives in Norfolk. Love Like Your Heart’s on Fire is her second novel and is the sequel to her debut Live Like Your Head’s on Fire. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Creative Director of the Cloth of Kindness health and wellbeing textile art project. She runs writing and movement for well-being workshops.

Sallyannelomas.co.uk

Supporters

These courses have been developed with support from Arts Council England and National Centre for Writing.